Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-08-18
APPALLING!
AN EXCURSION TRAIN PLUNGES
THROUGH A BIaDGE.
Over a Hundred Persons Killed.

CHICAGO, Aug. 1.-THE Chicago
Times special from Forest, ILL.,, says:
All railway horrors in the history of
this country were surpassed three
miles east of Chatsworth last night,
when an excursion train on the Toledo.
Peoria and Warsaw road dropped
through burning bridge. Over one
hundred people were killed and four
times that number more or less badly
injured. The train was composed OF
six sleepers, day coaches, chair cars and
three baggage. 1t was carrying nine
hundred and sixty passengers, all eX-
cursionists, and was bound for Niagara
Falls.
The train had been made up all
along the line of the Toledo, Feoria
and Warsaw r., and the excursionists
Illinois, the bulk of them, however,
coming from Peoria. Some of the
passengers came from Canton, from
Elpass, Washington, and in fact from
all stations along the line, some from as
far west as Burlington, Iowa, and Keo-
kuk. A special cheap rate had been
made for the excursion and all sorts Of
people took advantage off it.
When the train drew out of Peoria
at s o'clock last evening 1t was loaded
to its utmost capacity. Every berth
in the sieepers were taken and the day
cras carried sixty people each. The
train was so heavy that two engines
were hitched to it and when it passed
this place it was an hour and half be-
hind time.
Chatsworth, the next station east of
here, is six miles off and the run there
was made in seven minutes. The ter
rible momentum of those fifteen
coaches with two heavy engines shoot
ing through space at the rate of O mile a
a minute can be understood. No stop
was made at Chatsworth, and on and
on the heavy train, with its living
| freight, sped through the darkness of
the night.
Three miles east of Chatsworth is a
little slough where the railroad track
crosses dry run about ter feet deep
and fifteen wide. Over this was
stretched an ordinary wooden trestle
bridge and as the excursion train came
laundering down on it, what was the
horror of the engineer on the front
engine when he saw that this bridge
was on fire.
Right up before his eyes leaped
bright flames and the next instant he
was among them. There was nc
chance to stop. Had there been warn
ing it would have taken half mile at
least to stop that on-rushing mass OF
wood, iron and humanity, and the
train was within one hundred yards ot
the red-tongued messengers of death
before they flashed their fatal signal!
into the engineers face.
But he passed over in safety, the frs
engine keeping the rails. AS it wen
over the bridge fell beneath it, and il
could only have been the terrific speed
of the train which saved the lives of the
engineer and fireman.
But the next engine went down, and
instantly the deed of death was done
Car crashed into car, coaches piled one
on top of another, and in the twinklins
of an eye nearly one hundred people
found instant death and fifty NOR,
were so hurt they could not live.
AS for the wounded they were every
where. Only the sleeping coaches es
caped, and as the startled, half-dresset
passengers come tumbling out of then
they found such a scene of death as il
rarely witnessed-such work to do
that it seemed as if human hands wer,
utterly incapable.
1t lacked but five minutes of mid
night. Down in the ditch lay the sec
ond engine-engineer McClintack deat
and fireman Applegate badly injured
On top were piled three baggage cars
one on top of the other, like a child
card house after he had swept it will
his hand. Then comes six day coache
they were telescoped as cars neve
were before, and three of them wer
pressed into just space enough for one
The second car had bounded off it
trucks and crashed through the ca
ahead of it, crushing wood work asid
!, like tinder, and lay there resting on tn
tops of the seats, while every passenge
in the front car was laying dead an,
dying underneath.
Out of that car but four people cam
out alive. On top of the second car la,
the third and although the latter di'
not cover its bearer as completely a
that beneath, its bottom was smeare'
with the blood of its victims.
The other three cars were not s.
badly crushed, but they were broker
ald twisted in every conceivable way
and every crushed timber and bean
} represented crushed human frame an,
broken bone.
Instantly the air was filled with tn
cries of the W wounded and the shrieks Q
those about to die. The groans of mel
and the screams of women united t
make an appalling sound. Above al
could be heard the agonizing cries Q
little children as, in some instances
they lay pinned alongside their dea
parents.
/ And there was
| ANOTHER TERRIBLE DANGER
yet to be met. The bridge was still
burning and the wrecked cars were Law
ing on and around the fiercely burninI
embers. Everywhere in the wreci
were wounded and unhurt men, wo
men and children, whose lives coul,
be saved if they could be gotten out
but whose death land death in its mos
horrible form) was eertain if the twist
ed wood of the broken cars caught fire
And to fight the fire, there was not
drop OF water, and only some fifty abl
bodied men who had still presence O
mind and nerve enough to do thei
duty.
The only light was the light of tn
burning bridge, and with SO much o
l its aid the fifty men went to work t,
subdue it. For four hours they
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